The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Ep. 271: Johan Gottlieb Fichte's Transcendental Idealism (Part One)

On The Vocation of Man (1799), Books I and II. What is reality? Fichte's armchair journey starts him considering nature and thus himself as determined, but then he backtracks to say that actually, experience doesn't tell us whether we're determined or free. In Book II, he argues that since our experience is always of something going on in ourselves, then causality, the external world, the self, etc. must be our own mental creations. So we're free after all, yet everything is drained of significance! Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at <a href="https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/support" rel="noopener" target="_blank">partiallyexaminedlife.com/support</a>. <a href="https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2021/06/06/ep271-2-fichte-transcendental-idealism-citizen/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Get it now</a> or <a href="https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2021/06/07/preview-ep271-2-fichte-transcendental-idealism" rel="noopener" target="_blank">listen to a preview</a>.

The Partially Examined Life is a podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a short text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don't have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we're talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion. For links to the texts we discuss and other info, check out www.partiallyexaminedlife.com.

We also feature episodes from other podcasts by our hosts to round out your partially examined life, including Pretty Much Pop (prettymuchpop.com, covering all media), Nakedly Examined Music (nakedlyexaminedmusic.com, deconstructing songs), Philosophy vs. Improv (philosophyimprov.com, fun with performance skills and philosophical ideas), and (sub)Text (subtextpodcast.com, looking deeply at lit and film). Learn about more network podcasts at partiallyexaminedlife.com.